This invention relates to a method and an apparatus for analyzing the semantics or the meaning of a word, a phrase, or a sentence in a language such as the Japanese language or the English language. This invention also relates to a method and apparatus for analyzing the syntactic structure or construction of a sentence in a language. The methods and apparatuses of this invention are usable in various systems such as document proofreading systems or machine translation systems.
A main part of a computer-based Japanese-text proofreading system or a computer-based Japanese-English translation system analyzes the syntax or the grammatical structure of a Japanese sentence and reexpresses the meaning of the sentence in a handy structure, and then operates on the structure to obtain an intended operation or output. There is a demand for an efficient method of analyzing the meaning of a Japanese sentence or an efficient method of analyzing the syntax of a Japanese sentence.